The 2009 Greener Gadget speaker lineup is expanding every day.
Check back frequently as we announce more green innovators, thought-leaders, environmental stewards of top electronic brands, cleantech entrepreneurs, industrial designers, engineers and inventors.

GADI AMIT
Gadi Amit is the principal designer and founder of NewDealDesign. Amit runs NewDeal hands-on, with great attention to the project strategy and goals, as well as the finest details. His award-winning work has been featured in many design publications and has been exhibited at the Chicago Athenaeum, Cooper Hewitt-National Design Museum and San Francisco MOMA. Amit is a frequent jurist in design panels, most on ID magazine, Fortune magazine and the California Design Biennial. Prior to founding NewDeal, Gadi was with frogdesign for nearly seven years, ending as the vice president of design. He has extensive experience in consumer electronics, mobile and personal computing, household goods, and commercial and medical technology industries.

ADAM ASTON
Adam Aston is the energy and environment editor for BusinessWeek. Previously, he was industries editor, managing the industrial management edition, and was a frequent contributor to the science-technology section, where he covered a wide variety of emerging and applied technologies, as well as the U.S. industrial sector. Before joining BusinessWeek, Aston worked in Hong Kong as a writer and editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). In Hong Kong, as editor of Business Asia, Aston wrote about business, economic and political developments across the region. Thereafter, he worked as a freelance business journalist and editor for a variety of organizations, including the EIU, the Economist Conferences, the Far East Economic Review and The New York Times. Aston also wrote research reports for McKenzie, Bain and Pyramid Research.

MARK BENT
Mark Bent served as a U.S. Marine, Naval officer and American diplomat prior to starting SunNight Solar in early 2006. He spent the majority of his government service in Africa and the Middle East, where he gained an appreciation for the lack of energy and the impact on people and development. Bent is married with four children, and resides in Houston, TX. He flies a motor-glider when not traveling, working or playing with his children.

AARON DALLEK
As the leading technologist behind the Planet Metrics, Dallek has been researching and developing lifecycle assessment technology for more than three years, and is committed to the innovative application of software technology to environmental challenges. Having owned and operated two successful businesses over the past eight years, Dallek is also a successful entrepreneur. In 2002, he co-founded Cheap Ink, a printer cartridge sales and recycling company, which focused on selling and promoting high quality, environmentally sustainable printer products for small and medium sized businesses. In 1999, he ran his own consulting firm specializing in consumer training and technology evaluation for the home office and small business market.

RON GONEN
Ron Gonen began working on RecycleBank while enrolled at Columbia Business School. It took a year to write the business plan and another year to design the software. With seed money Gonen received seed upon graduating from Columbia, RecycleBank was officially launched as a pilot program in Philadelphia in December 2004. The service expanded to six states in 2007 and launched nationally in 2008. RecycleBank demonstrates that positive environmental actions are financially rewarding. Today, RecycleBank rewards thousands of homes that recycle with RecycleBank Points that they use to shop at hundreds of participating businesses. The teams at RecycleBank help municipalities save money, stimulate local economic development, and preserve our environment.

SAUL GRIFFITH
Dr. Saul Griffith has multiple degrees in materials science and mechanical engineering and completed his PhD in programmable assembly and self replicating machines at MIT. He is the co-founder of numerous companies including Low Cost Eyeglasses, Squid Labs, Potenco, Instructables.com, HowToons and Makani Power. Griffith has been awarded numerous awards for invention including the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Collegiate Inventor’s award, and the Lemelson-MIT Student prize. He holds multiple patents and patents pending in textiles, optics, nanotechnology, and energy production.

STEPHEN HARPER
Stephen Harper is global director of environment and energy policy for Intel Corp. He also serves as chairman of the International Climate Change Partnership (ICCP) and, over the years, has chaired many high tech industry groups. Prior to joining Intel, he directed Amoco Petroleum’s fuel regulatory services group and was a senior policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency.

MICHAEL MURPHY
Michael Murphy is senior manager of worldwide environmental affairs for Dell. In this role, he is responsible for leading standardization and governance of environmental and regulatory compliance, increasing Dell’s environmental leadership across its entire product portfolio. Murphy is also one of the primary authors of Dell’s annual sustainability report, regularly assisting customers with their questions about the company’s environmental programs and playing a key role in Dell becoming the ‘greenest’ technology company on the planet.

MICHAEL NEWMAN
Michael Newman leads ReCellular’s marketing and product development departments. Newman has been instrumental in establishing a greater retail market presence by implementing unique and successful phone collection programs. He is responsible for launching a new visual identity, via innovative electronic and print marketing and advertising. Prior to joining ReCellular, Newman served as National Political Representative for the Sierra Club. In that role, he directed the organizations multi-million dollar political activities in 20 states. Newman was the organizational liaison for the Gore 2000 presidential campaign and successfully coordinated activities in seven states. He also served as a national spokesperson on electoral, clean water and related environmental issues.

EMILY PILLOTON
Emily Pilloton is the founder and executive director of Project H Design, a nonprofit that enables product design initiatives for humanity, habitats, health, and happiness. Trained in architecture at UC Berkeley and product design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Pilloton started Project H in 2007 to provide a conduit and catalyst for need-based product design that empowers individuals, communities, and economies. Current Project H initiatives include water transport and filtration systems in South Africa and India, educational math toys for a school for AIDS orphans in Uganda, a homeless-run design co-op in LA, and design concepts for foster care education and therapy in Austin. She has written for publications including ID, GOOD, and ReadyMade.

KEN ROTHER
As president and COO, Ken Rother is responsible for bringing the vision and strategy of TreeHugger to life. In addition, Rother serves as vice president of operations for Planet Green Interactive, including oversight for TreeHugger’s sister site PlanetGreen.com. As a lifelong hardware hacker, Rother now combines his interest in green with projects designed to monitor and save energy. Rother has been involved in the Internet since the early 90s when he co-founded Mountain Lake Software in Toronto, Canada with Mathew Zaleski and William Tapscott. Mountain Lake helped some of Canada’s largest financial institutions take their first steps onto the worldwide web. After being acquired by a New York publisher in 1998, where he first met Graham Hill, Rother held various roles including vice president of operations responsible for all deliverables of their internet consulting division, and later, as divisional CIO, introduced process altering technology to their globalization business.

RAHUL SHARMA
Rahul Sharma is the vice president of North American operations for the U.K.-based Freeplay Energy, manufacturers of portable consumer electronics that incorporate smart power solutions that either have no access to grid power or some access to grid power. Freeplay’s products harness human, solar and rechargeable energy to power durable portable devices. The product range includes mobile power, audio, light, medical and humanitarian devices. The famous Freeplay Lifeline radio is distributed throughout the developing world by the Freeplay Foundation and aid and development organizations such as UNICEF and other United Nations agencies.

DANIEL SIEBERG
Daniel Sieberg joined CBS News as its science and technology correspondent in December 2006. He reports for and contributes to the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, The Early Show, CBS News Sunday Morning, CBS Radio News and CBSNews.com. Sieberg has reported on a wide variety of stories, including climate change in the Arctic, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and the Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. He writes a regular blog, Tech Talk, for CBSNews.com, hosts a weekly radio segment called SciEye for CBS Radio News and contributes a personal technology column to Oprah.com. Sieberg also co-hosts GWord with SuChin Pak, a program about environmental concepts and personalities, for Discovery Channel’s Planet Green network.

CARL SMITH
As president and CEO of Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp., Carl Smith oversees the organization’s strategic partnerships and is responsible for the management of the national public education campaign and Call2Recycle program, the nation’s most comprehensive rechargeable battery and cell phone recycling solution. Working directly with its board of directors, Smith leads the overall direction of the company. Smith has extensive experience in strategic marketing, brand positioning, and distribution and channel development. He previously served as the CEO of GREENGUARD Environmental Institute, a non-profit organization that develops and promotes indoor air quality standards and programs.

DAVID THOMPSON
David Thompson has worked for Panasonic for 24 years in a number of different job responsibilities. Thompson heads up Panasonic’s Corporate Environmental Department, where he is responsible for environmental compliance for facilities and products, environmental marketing strategies, state and federal government policy issues and special projects, such as developing recycling programs for Panasonic products. Thompson now serves concurrently as president of the Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Company LLC (MRM), a joint-venture formed between Panasonic Corporation of North America, Sharp Electronics Corp. and Toshiba America Consumer Products LLC. Thompson has been involved in environmental issues since 1991, when Panasonic played a key role in establishing the Portable Rechargeable Battery Association (PRBA).

JOSHUA TOPOLSKY
Joshua Topolsky heads Engadget as editor-in-chief, overseeing the creative and editorial content for the technology blog — the flagship brand of the Weblogs Inc. network. He also manages sister-sites Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD, and supervises the growing pool of Engadget foreign arms, including hubs for Spanish, Japanese and Chinese. In all, the stable of properties sees millions of visitors a day, and is widely considered to be the definitive source for consumer electronics and gadget news.
Photo Credit: Morini & Montanari

sign up for Greener Gadgets emails